Illegal Contact (The Barons)

by Santino Hassell

  “What?”

  “Don’t be like everyone else—treating me like some dumbass who doesn’t know what he wants or how he feels unless someone else is filling in the blanks.”

  I stood, holding up my hands. “That’s not what I’m doing. I’m just saying—”

  “I know what you’re saying,” he said. “You’re saying the only reason I want you in my bed is because there’s no one else here to fill it. Or that being isolated has got me tripping and lonely, and that’s the only reason I want you.”

  “But how do you know that’s not the case?” I demanded. “How do you know you’ll feel the same way once you’re out on the road again, or practicing, or going out and having people throw themselves at you? Maybe you’ll realize your life is much bigger than mine, and I’m just a normal guy who doesn’t fit into your world.”

  Gavin’s face grew taut, suspicion in his eyes and glimmers of hurt shining through. “This isn’t even Joe right now, is it? It’s you. He may have put the idea in your head, but you wouldn’t be latching on this fast if there wasn’t something to it on your end.”

  “That’s not true. Or at least . . .” A roar from the television flooded the house, and I cringed. I shouldn’t have done this now, but it was too late to go back and undo the conversation. Especially with him towering over me with his hands white-knuckling and his body brimming with tension. “I’ve been just as isolated as you, and I’ve been on another planet for the past couple of months, but that’s changing soon. And I need to stop forgetting that and think realistically.”

  “So you and me together isn’t realistic.”

  It wasn’t. It was surreal. A fantasy. A dream.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Not when those golden eyes were boring into me like twin lasers, and when emotion was clawing at my throat to prevent me from getting out anything coherent at all.

  I closed the distance between us and put my hands on his shoulders, digging in tight. “Tell me what you want to do.”

  “I don’t want you to disappear from my life once this ends,” he said. “I don’t want to lose you. As a friend, a fucking confidante, and everything else.”

  “And I feel the same way,” I insisted, jerking him closer. “If you think it’s realistic, then you tell me how we can make it work. And I am fucking here for it, Gavin. One hundred percent. But you have to tell me how we can handle your career, and the cold hard truth that people finding out about us, which is inevitable, has the chance of ruining things for you.”

  Gavin shook his head and tried to pull away, but I jerked him closer. So close our foreheads pressed together and his eyes were inches from my own.

  “Tell me, if that happened,” I said urgently, “if you lose the only thing you’ve ever loved, the thing that’s held you together for all these years, that you wouldn’t resent me. You wouldn’t resent our relationship. You wouldn’t have enough regrets to fill this big, empty mansion. Tell me all of that, and then we can talk about a future together being realistic.”

  Gavin closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

  “Can you tell me that, Gavin?”

  His hands came up to grip my forearms, firm and then tighter, until a glimmer of gold was visible beneath his eyelashes again.

  “No,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t tell you that.”

  I’d expected it, and it still packed a punch so hard that it was hard to breathe. He seemed to sense it because he held me tighter against him. When my eyes grew damp, I squeezed them shut the way he’d just done, and he kissed my lids.

  “Fuck,” I whispered. “This hurts.”

  He nodded, burying his face in the crook of my neck, and held me as cheers from the game filled the house.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Gavin

  Noah was beautiful in his sadness.

  I sat on the edge of his bed, watching him pack. Even though he was leaving, and I wanted to be angry, I was just as taken with him now as I’d been the first morning he’d walked into Joe’s office. Only this time, I didn’t hide my entrancement with a glare. I openly admired his large, round eyes, his long, dark lashes, wide mouth, and his long, lean limbs. I watched as his fingers carefully folded each article of clothing, and wondered whether anyone else had ever noticed that he should have been playing the piano as a kid.

  He glanced up at me after several minutes of silence. “Are you going to say anything?”

  “What’s there to say?”

  “I don’t know. If this was a movie, you’d be begging me not to go.” Noah smoothed his hands over a Star Wars T-shirt. “Or making outrageous promises if only I didn’t leave.”

  I sat up, hunching forward with my forearms resting on my knees. “Would you reconsider?”

  “No.”

  “Then why make a scene when our last day together could be peaceful?”

  Noah’s lips stretched into a smile, and his eyes twinkled behind his glasses. “I feel like four and a half months ago those words would never have come out of your mouth.”

  “Heh. Maybe. Four and a half months ago I didn’t see a need to not drive people away.”

  He kept smiling at me, and after a beat, my own mouth tipped up at the sides. I reached across the bed to draw him closer, and sighed when he was in my arms. His body felt right fitted to mine. I couldn’t believe this was the last time I’d get to hold him.

  “You don’t have to quit,” I said into his hair. “I wouldn’t be a dick and make it awkward.”

  “I don’t think you would, but I also don’t think either of us is capable of riding out the next month and a half without things getting more intense.” Noah sighed, and it came out shuddery. “And I have to be honest and say it started to feel . . . not great to be getting paid by the man I was going to bed with. Those are two things I don’t want to mix anymore. Either you’re my boss or my lover. I can’t have it be both anymore.”

  There was nothing I could dispute there, except my desire to be his lover. His boyfriend. His everything. I shook my head slowly, eyes closed, and wondered when exactly he’d become so important to me. Somewhere between him telling me to take a few seats if I couldn’t act like an adult and seeing through my tough-guy bullshit.

  “Can I text you?”

  Noah kissed my forehead. “You don’t even text me now.”

  “I can start.” I pulled away just enough to see him. “If you tell me this is our last time ever speaking to each other, I really will make a scene. That’s not fucking cool.”

  “I’m not going to tell you that, I was just being skeptical. I plan to text you. Especially when I’m watching football. I like it when you get all serious face and explain the rules to me like my understanding is life or death.”

  I smacked his ass. “Shut up.”

  Noah’s eyes narrowed slightly and his grip on me tightened. I knew that look. The darkening gaze and dilated pupils, how his mouth opened just slightly so he could suck in a quickening breath. All indications that he was having dirty thoughts. And now I was having them too.

  Closing the miniscule space between us, I brushed our lips together. He inhaled deeply, fingers sliding into my hair, and parted his lips enough for me to sweep my tongue inside. He was so addictive. Like candy. Or drugs. One taste of him had me fiending and my heart beating out of my chest.

  “I need to go,” he uttered.

  “Not yet.”

  I invaded his mouth again, slicking our tongues together as he gripped my hair tight enough to tug at my scalp. Any second, he should have been pulling away. Both of us should have, because this wasn’t just his choice. I couldn’t deny the inevitable dysfunction of us trying to have a real relationship. It would never be full. Never be satisfying. There would always be the threat of someone ruining it, and of my career falling apart if someone else outed me.

  Us parting ways was mutual. He was just the only one who could walk away. I was stuck here in my lonely mansion, and I’d spend the next six weeks remembering how l
etting myself feel for him had felt so much like freedom. Maybe not from this house, but from my own self-imposed walls. The ones I’d constructed as a kid to protect myself from people who’d taken advantage and used me.

  “Fuck,” I said against his wet lips. “I need this. I need you.”

  Noah tilted his head back, probably to see me, but I attached my mouth to his throat and sucked on his Adam’s apple.

  “Why?” he asked hoarsely. “Why do you need me?”

  “You make me feel alive.” I kissed down to his collarbone. “Make me feel real.”

  “You are real. And if you stop hiding the best parts of yourself, everyone else will see it too.”

  “I could give a fuck about everyone else, Noah. I only care about you.”

  He didn’t protest as I slid down so I was on my back with him straddling me. It was the most natural thing in the world for him to lean down and kiss me again with his thighs spread on either side of mine, and my legs hooked over his, keeping him in place. Tangled up and lost in each other, and channeling my sadness and hopelessness into an increasingly frantic kiss inside of letting it transform into frustration and anger.

  We ground against each other, his denim-covered dick rubbing against my cotton-covered one, until I lost the plot and ripped his fly open. If Noah remembered that he was supposed to be leaving, he said nothing. He was eager and breathless when I got his pants below his hips so I could clutch the firm globes of his ass while he undulated above me.

  There was no doubt in my mind that he wanted me to fuck him. Slide into his tight heat and give it to him deep and hard and steady until he was shaking from the force of his building ejaculation. I could feel that need in him as our kisses turned sloppy and his breathing ragged.

  It was a good time to stop. Catch our wind. Separate. But Noah had been right about one thing—we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

  I spread his ass cheeks and pressed my index finger against his entrance, teasing just enough to get him restless. And he did, rocking back and groaning, slowly becoming the brash Queens kid who only peeked out when provoked.

  “Stop being a fucking tease,” he bit out. “Jesus Christ.”

  My shoulders shook with laughter as he glared, all glassy-eyed and swollen-lipped.

  “I’m gonna miss this, Noah.”

  Some of the fire left his gaze, but then he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face into my neck. “Just fuck me one last time, Gavin.”

  Last time.

  My heart thudded. I could not comprehend those two words, even after gearing myself up for him walking out the door. But the finality of them broke me. This was it. It was really it. A jagged breath caught in my chest. Holy shit, I was going to crumble.

  Instead of letting myself fall apart, I yanked his head up with a violent tug of his hair and slammed our lips together in a savage kiss. He groaned and rocked back on the hand still gripping his ass. He loved my shows of force. Loved when I took him instead of having him. Each bruising grip and impatient shift a promise to fuck him within an inch of his life.

  I picked him up and flipped him over, pushing his face into the mattress with his ass in the air. He was already trying to shimmy out of his jeans, but I took over and ripped them off in a few rough tugs. The underwear came next, then the shirt, the fabric stretching and ripping as my fingernails scraped at his skin in the effort. All the clothes he wore were so goddamn tight, sometimes it was a fight to get them off him. A fight he thoroughly enjoyed.

  The bottle of lube was still where we’d left it days ago—open and on the floor beside my bed, the thick silicone liquid congealed around the side. I grabbed it and got my fingers greasy, breath coming harder as he dragged his dick along the sheet for some friction.

  “My good college boy,” I rasped. “Such a needy little slut in bed.”

  He growled, and I smacked his ass again. The shiver that went through his body turned me on to such an excess that a trickle of liquid slipped from my dick. Once I slid my fingers into the clenching tunnel of his ass, the tip of my erection was sticking to my shorts. I needed to jerk it, but I took that out on his ass with deep thrusts of my fingers. He slammed back on them with his forearms braced against the bed, his ass jiggling with each motion.

  “You’re so gorgeous,” I said roughly. “That ass was made to be fucked.”

  He nodded, still riding my hand. “Yeah. Please.”

  “Please what?”

  “Please fuck my ass,” he gasped. “And go hard.”

  That was all I needed to go full Neanderthal. I pulled my fingers out, laughing quietly when he clenched around them tighter, and used my unlubed hand to flip him over. He bounced on the bed, his dick bobbing, and then spread himself just for me. He was flushed and wild-eyed, hair everywhere and mouth open. And that dick was so hard it was likely pulsing. I leaned down for a quick suck and was rewarded by him keening my name like a wail.

  Too much for me to hold out on. I had his thighs yanked apart and my cock lodged in his ass before it registered that I’d impaled him.

  The blissed-out smile crossed his face, the one that haunted my every night and daydream. The way his eyes rolled back and his lips parted while the sides turned up. The breathless laugh of relief to have my dick in him. It was all so perfect. And soon to be gone.

  My stomach bottomed out. I rocked against him slowly.

  “Who’s gonna fuck you like this when I’m gone, Noah?”

  His eyes snapped open. Alarm crossed his face. “What?”

  My fingers dug harder into his thighs. I slapped my hips again, driving into him deeper and fucking out an agonized moan.

  “Who’s gonna put that smile on your face when you’re not with me anymore?”

  Even through the pleasure that had to be pulsing through him, as he scrabbled at the sheet and pushed harder against me, I saw the flash of hurt. Regret.

  “Nobody,” he whispered. “You ruined me for anyone else.”

  I wanted to cry, but I power-fucked him instead.

  I was relentless. I was goddamn ruthless. And he loved every second.

  With his elbows pressed into the bed for leverage, Noah rocked up to meet me every time I pulled out and rammed back into him. The smile returned once my sac was slapping against his ass with each pump, and when the sloppy sound of me plunging into him grew louder after I reapplied lube.

  His arms gave out then. He fell back on the bed and stroked himself frantically while I took every ounce of my loss out on his ass.

  “Yeah, hit it like that until I come,” he whispered. “Fuck, I can feel it.”

  “Look at me.”

  He wrenched his eyes open and gazed up at me as raw helplessness crossed his face, the expression of a man on the brink of releasing so hard he was going to lose all his senses.

  “Oh shit.” His voice was getting louder and more uneven. His eyes teared. “Yeah, right there.”

  I managed two more stuttered thrusts before shooting inside Noah. The force of it destroyed me and left me a shaking, moaning mess, but I kept moving until his swollen dick released all over his chest. He tried to keep eye contact the whole time, but the last spurt sent his eyes rolling back again and a wild cry tearing from his mouth.

  His porn-star sounds prompted me to swipe up some of his come and feed it into his mouth. He licked my fingers clean and gave a contented sigh. I collapsed next to him, thinking I should stop there but was completely unable to stop myself from yanking him against me.

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said once we were locked around each other in a sweaty, sloppy pile of limbs. “Jesus, I’m a wreck.”

  “Same,” I said thickly. “But just for you.”

  “Don’t say things like that right now. Unless you want to break me.”

  I ran my hand up his back, tracing his spine and enjoying the little shiver that followed. “I don’t want to make this harder, but I think you should know something.”

  Noah propped his chin onto
my chest, the point digging in. “What?”

  The words had been in my head for days. Since last Thursday, when we’d come to the realization that it wouldn’t work the way things were headed now, and we needed to cut the cord before we both fell too deep. I’d realized I’d already fallen too far to climb out without damage.

  “Football isn’t the only thing that’s held me together. And it’s not the only thing I love.” Noah’s eyes went wide, but I kissed him before he could say anything. “Now leave before I tie you to my fucking bed.”

  He released a shaky laugh and rolled away. Not fast enough to hide the damp sheen to his eyes or the way he’d bit the inside of his lip. I rolled onto my side, naked and cold but not covering up, and watched as he washed up quickly and dressed again. It didn’t take more than five minutes for him to finish packing, which sucked. I’d been hoping to draw it out. Watch him longer. Come up with a miracle that would result in me having a normal job and a normal life where I could have a relationship with the man who’d gotten past my bullshit and found a place in my heart.

  When his backpack was hanging over one shoulder and his suitcase was shut, Noah looked at me again.

  “Don’t fire Joe.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Seriously, Gavin. He’s an asshole, but he cares about you. And he’s loyal to you. I don’t know if you’d find someone else like him. And . . . until you step up and start taking on your own finances and responsibilities, you need him.”

  “I’ll take that under consideration.”

  “I hope you do.”

  He opened the door, paused long enough for a knot to work into my throat and my chest to constrict, and then walked out. I stared at that spot until the security system beeped, indicating that he’d armed the code and left the house.

  The sense of loss hit me in the gut. It was staggering.

  I told myself to get up. To work the grief and loneliness out of my system the way I’d done with anger in the past. Work him out of my system. But I didn’t.

  Other than forcing myself to order something to eat, I stayed in my room for the next few weeks.